One method of representing the states that occur in a process is with a timeline in a graphical user interface with every time period or time interval of the process represented by a pixel of a certain color, and with the different states represented by different colors (e.g., green for execution, red for waiting, blue for yielding, etc.). Because computer displays have limited resolution and because the process being represented may have a larger set of state transitions than pixels, the time period corresponding to any given pixel may contain more than one state, and representing the time period with a single color results in a loss of information. The loss of information can be detrimental to the utility of the visualizations in identifying interesting aspects of the behavior of the process.